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THE 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



AN ADDRESS 



BY 



WINSLOW WARREN, 

PRESJI>KM- OK TUK BUNKKK HH.I. MONUMKXT ASSUCIATIOX. 



Junk 17, 11)04. 



BOSTON: JUNE, 1004. 




Iass_ 



kM 



t2!2l 



'Kic.sK.NTi:/ rsv 



THE 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCi:. 



AN ADDRESS 

BY 

WINSLOW \yARREN, 

i'kksjdeint uk the hunkp:i! uii.l monument association. 
June 17, 1904. 



BOSTON: JUNE, 1004. 



Gift. 

30 '04 



ADDRESS. 



Gkntlemen of the Bu.nkeu Hill Monument Association: 

It is a matter of regret to me that other engagements have 
compelled my absence from your meetings the two years past, 
but your printed proceedings upon those occasions were full 
of interest and contributed material of importance to the 
student of Revolutionary literature. 

The Treasurer's Report shows that the financial condition 
of the Association is good, although the erection of the new 
Lodge increases the expenses in much the same proportion 
that it adds to the comfort of visitors. The most pressing 
need of the Association is that of a larger permanent fund 
to improve the grounds and keep the buildings in proper 
and attractive condition. 

During the year ten members of our Association have 
passed away, and one of our Directoi's, Mr. Richard Devens. 
They were earnest, active citizens, proud of their heritage, 
and in their respective fields of work added to the well-being 
and moral strength of this community. We shall miss them 
from our membership, but to those who take their places we 
extend a cordial welcome, confident that the patriotic mem- 
ories clustering round the 17th of June will inspire them to 
follow closely in the footsteps of their predecessors. 

The year's panorama hiis unfolded a varied picture, with 
incidents both of encouragement and of warning. While it 
has not been a year of marked prosperity, and while accidents 
by flood and fire have caused terrible losses and suffering, 



our country has pursued a peaceful and progressive course, 
and no complications of a dangerous nature have actively 
threatened. The settlement by arbitration of the Alaskan 
Question and the Venezuelan troul:)les is a matter for con- 
gratulation, irrespective of the terms of settlement. The 
assurance of the building of the Panama Canal is of tlie 
first importance, not only l)ecause it closes a vexed question, 
but for its effect in changing and opening up new avenues 
of trade and in knitting together different parts of this Union 
of States. The final step in its accomplishment will probably 
always be subject to criticism and 'discussion, but rightful 
authoi'ity having settled the fact tiiat the CanaLis to be l)uilt, 
no one will question its desirability and usefulness. 

The most perplexing problems before the country are, as 
they have long been, those connected with the continual strife 
between capital and labor, and it is singular and not alto- 
gether encouraging that such conditions should exist and 
seemingly grow worse in a country affording boundless 
opportunity for both laboring man and capitalist and where 
the chances for progress and improvement are so great. 
One would think that here, if anywhere, justification was 
wanting for class feeling, for jealousies, or for violent breach 
of the laws. 

The constant succession of strikes retards progress, imperils 
l)usiness interests, and brings suffering and disaster to those 
concerned and to parties having no immediate connections 
with the sti'ife. The gi'owing strength of the labor unions 
would not be a subject of regret was it not too often 
accompanied by a dictatorial and narrow spirit infringing 
upon the rights of the individual man and frequently lead- 
ing to public disorder and violation of law. As an educat- 
ing force to its members the Union is of value, and equally 
so as a protection for the just rights of labor, but its members 
should never forget that the puljlic ))eace must l»e preserved 



D 



at all hazards, tliat no g-rievanccs can be enforced by violence, 
and that the rights of non-union men are just as sacred and 
inviolate as those of men who band themselves together for a 
common purpose. Liberty is a myth, and despotism usurps 
its place, unless the individual man may use his own judgment 
and work where and when he pleases for what he deems 
sufficient wage without violent interference by others; he may 
be persuaded, he may be influenced, but no man or body of 
men liave the right to use force. Despotism is despotism, 
whether under forms of labor unions or capitalistic com- 
binations, and a trust in labor may be just as oppressive and 
dangerous as a trust to restrict production, affect prices, or 
for any other purpose, even more so in its tendency to lead to 
open violence. 

The great public having no connection with particular com- 
binations must always be considered, and it will not patiently 
submit to interruption of public traffic or to the lessening of 
its comforts or conveniences while jarring interests are set- 
tling their private quarrels. Public legislation should be 
impartial in the sense that it should be directed towards 
bettering conditions and repairing injustice to all classes of 
people, but none should be enacted except with the under- 
standing that peace is always to be preserved and that the 
wrongs of special parties shall not be redressed at the ex- 
pense of the rights of the community as a whole. 

Outside of our country it is not a cheering ])rospect that, 
despite Hague Conferences and all efforts to promote peace 
between nations, the opening years of this Twentieth Century 
witness a disastrous and bloody war between great empires of 
the West and East, and upon (piestions that seem to involve 
little else than extensions of teriitory at the expense of other 
nations. However sympathies may be divided between the 
two contejidiiig parties, we must all hope that the war may 
not be of long duration, and that the awful waste, sacrifice, and 



6 

slaughter may tend to discourage such barbarous methods and 
to spread the principles of peaceful arbitration. 

The military spirit prevailing everywhere, even in our own 
country, and the apotheosis of force, requiring such enormous 
military and naval appropriations, give food for thought, and 
in this connection we may well consider whether the alarming 
increase of crime, the lynchings at the South and West, and 
the disregard of law in many high quarters, are not the natural 
result of such a spirit. The Devil's advocates are uncommonly 
busy, and if Christian preachers believe in the Gospel of Peace, 
they have a wide field for Christian work. He who talks of 
war as anything but a curse to a nation and a crime against 
humanity should remember these words of General Sherman, 
who knew what war was : " I confess without shame that I am 
tired and sick of the war. Its glory is all moonshine. Even 
success, the most brilliant, is over dead and mangled bodies, 
the anguish and lamentation of distant families appealing to 
me for missing sons, husbands, and fathers. It is only those 
who have not heard a shot, nor heard the shrieks and groans 
of the wounded and lacerated (friend or foe), that cry aloud 
for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation." 

The Peace Conference, to be held in Boston in the Fall, is a 
hopeful sign; for this Republic above all others should stand 
for peace, and this Association and all patriotic societies 
which venerate the Founders of this Republic and believe 
that the pi'inciples they advocated lead to peace and amity 
between nations can contribute to the hastening of the time 
when armaments shall be reduced and the reign of i)eace in 
the world be brought nearer. 

To that end, in the short space of time allotted me to-day, 
1 desire to call your attention to what our Fathers believed as 
illustrated l)y their own words, and I turn back by way of 
text to the interview I once before referred to, which our late 
member Juduc Chnniberlaiu narrated that he had with 



Captain Preston, who fought at Lexington, and who, wlien 
over ninety years of age, coidd recall no reason for going into 
the fight 'other than that America hat! always governed her- 
self and always meant to. 

We may seek for hidden causes of the Revolution — we may 
ascribe it to this or that violation of rights or liberties, but 
reduced to its ultimate the old soldier probably summed it 
up pretty much as it presented itself to the ordinary mind 
at the time, and expressed in a general way the feeling that 
actuated the masses of the revolutionists. Few had the time, 
the power, or the desire to reason the matter out, or to 
form definite ideas of what the trouble was or what they 
wanted. 

We are all familiar with the stated causes for revolt, but 
they w^ere the excitement of the moment as compared with 
the pride of conscious strength and the desire America had 
to be left alone to work out her own problems. 

The special grievances, the principles in dispute brought 
forth the great leaders, but probably their minds were less 
influenced by them than they imagined, and back of all was 
the feeling only partially recognized that America was a 
nation and needed no instruction or guidance from abroad. 
Of course they did not say that, they were honest in the 
beginning in disclaiming any idea of independence ; they did, 
with rare exceptions, honestly look forward to a reconciliation 
with the mother country ; but all the while, though they did not 
see it then, the terms of reconcilation formulated in their 
minds were impossible of attainment in any other way than 
by independence. 

It does not impugn their good faith or wisdom that like all 
great leaders of revolutions they failed to estimate the force 
of the current bearing them on ; but it is plain to our eyes 
that a revolt in the name of the King against the Parliament 
to establish rights that King and Parliament alike desired to 



withhold was a fiction which in the nature of things could 
only be temporary, and which the first clash of arms was 
certain to dissipate into thin air. Events moved too fast for 
men's control, and independence came because no other result 
than that of absolute submission was possible. 

Consider for a moment how rapidly at last America drifted 
towards revolution and separation, and how each step forward, 
as usual, lopped off the hesitating and timid, and made it 
more and more difficult for the bolder leaders to retrace their 
path. 

In 1761 James Otis struck the keynote in his great ai'gu- 
ment against the writs of assistance, — the general principles 
of independence which operated later were then so clearly 
enunciated that the people caught the breath of freedom, and 
the unrest and turmoil and frequent outbreaks during the 
nine years following showed that the lesson could not be 
unlearned. 

March 5, 1770, came the ]3oston Massacre on State Street, 
the first conflict of the Revolution, in which the people 
were stricken down by murderous bullets ; December 16, 
1773, the mob openly defied British law by throwing the 
tea overboard in Boston Harbor; May, 1774, General Gage 
arrived in Boston to assume the position of Royal Gov- 
ernor, and was escoi'ted from Long Wharf to the Town 
House in King, now State, Street by the Boston Cadets, 
under the command of John Hancock, probably the last 
act of loyalty to Great Britain by the Corps or its 
officers; June 1, 1774, the Port of Boston was closed by 
Act of Parliament; September, 1774, the (.Continental Con- 
gress or Conference of States gathered at Philadelphia ; Octo- 
ber 5, 1774, the Massachusetts House of Re])resentatives met 
at Salem, summoned by Governor Gage, and being notified 
that their meeting was revoked, immediately constituted 
themselves a Provincial Congress, assumed administration, 



9 

and passed orders i'ori)utting the Province into a condition lor 
defence, — the winter passed in fruitless disputes witlj the 
Governor and Royal officers, but the Congress was busy with 
active and positive work nearly approaching rebellion; April 
]1>, 1775, the natural result came in the fight at Lexington 
and Concord, fairly opening the Revolution, and followed by 
the gathering of a large army of half-armed troops at (Cam- 
bridge to besiege Boston, the Continental Congress finding a 
commander for them in the person of George Washington ; 
May 10, 1775, Ticonderoga and Crown Point were taken by 
force ; on June 17, 1775, before Washington had reached the 
army, Bunker Hill was fought; March 17, 1776, Boston was 
evacuated by the British, the scene of action was transferred 
to a larger field at New York, and then, July 4, 177H, came 
the time to write the Revohition into the Declai'ation of Inde- 
pendence, so that the world might behold the new nation and 
find also a government with a novelty, one that based itself 
upon certain ideal truths, and thus differentiated the Ameri- 
can Revolution from all preceding revolutions. 

However old the subject may be, and however hopeless the 
thought of adding anything new to the discussion, it may still 
be interesting to consider this extraordinary Declaration from 
a purely historical standpoint, and to revive our recollections 
of its truths, as well as to consider how far in reality they were 
intended to go. As no political pai'ty has any proprietorshij* 
in those truths, and no party has yet taken a position in oppo- 
sition to them, we can freely discuss them in the hope of 
clarifying our view of the deeper meaning of the Revolution. 
Present conditions are not to be considered in this discussion, 
we are now concerned only with the question of the j)er- 
manent or transitoiy nature of the document itself, and of its 
effectiveness as a rule of national conduct. 

Separating from the Declaration its catalogue of specific 
and tcmjjorary reasons for revolt, its whole purport is to set 



10 

fortl) — tlie natural freedom and equality of all men before 
the law ; the fundamental right of those governed to pass 
upon the form of government they shall live under, and to 
subvert it if not satisfactory ; and the right of all men to life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, — ^this last phrase seem- 
ing a broad generalization capable of wide interpretation. 

No one of these doctrines was original with the signers, 
and the Committee reporting the Declaration made no pre- 
tence to have originated them. Every principle had been 
stated and advocated long before by European philosophers 
and writers, — and the claim has been made that the Declara- 
tion itself bore a strong resemblance to that of the United 
Netherlands, — but it was the first practical application of 
such principles to an actual system of popular government. 
The author of the Declaration said in later years, " I did 
not consider it as any part of my charge to invent new ideas 
altogether, and to offer no sentiment which had ever been 
expressed before." 

It may properly be regarded, therefore, as a crystalliza- 
tion of old theories, and as such its promulgation excited 
surprise in Europe, mingled with a good deal of skepticism 
as to its being a working basis for government or as to 
the possibility of adherence to it in practice. This feoliug 
was a natural one, for if its doctrines were true and ex- 
tended elsewhere the prospect was dark for theories of the 
divine right of kings, of des])otic power, or even of current 
monarchical systems; and tiierein lies the very pith of the 
Declaration, and it was no wonder that when the seeds sown 
here ripened a little later in France and the bloody revolution 
there ended in a military despotism the proj)hets of evil 
quickly seized upon the result as a practical test and welcome 
proof of the absurdity of our j)osition. 

In the Orient it made no impression and in fact had no 
meaning, for such theories were not within the Oriental con- 



11 

ccption ; nor are tliey now so far as they spell Republicanism. 
Dr. Edward F^verett Hale recently sent a letter to an United 
States Senator, which well represents how such doctrines 
impress the Oriental mind, and is worth quoting as follows: 

" When Coinuiodore Perry opened the ports of Japan the 
Japanese Government liad in prison a young fellow from Wash- 
ington Territory who had been shipwrecked on their coast, — he 
was in prison only because he was a foreigner. They cross-examined 
him and asked hini what otlicer in our government held higher rank 
than the men they knew. He said the officers of the Navy had to 
obey the Secretary of the Navy, and that he was under the Presi- 
dent. They asked him who was greater than the President. This 
boy said that ' the people is greater than the Presidency,' and in 
giving the account of this afterward he said, ' of this they could 
make nothing.' " 

In other words, " a government of the people for the people 
and by the people " was not within their purview. 

When the Declaration was signed and issued to the country 
as a platform for a new nation, it can hardly be doubted that 
its doctrines were believed by its authors, and by those who 
accepted it, to be applicable to every people and to all times, 
— notwithstanding the recognized fact that unfortunate con- 
ditions here regarding African slavery revealed an apparent 
inconsistency. 

How far the words of the Declaration applied to negro 
slaves will always be disputed, but that Jefferson intended 
no excejjtion is to be gathered from his oft-quoted expres- 
sions, and from the fact that in the original draft the British 
Government were severely condemned for establishing slavery 
here and not repressing the slave trade. The historian 
Bancroft expressed in his history the Jeffersonian view^ 
saying, " The heart of Thomas Jefferson in writing the 
Declaration, and of Congress in adopting it, beat for all 
humanity ; the assertion of right was made for all mankind 
and all coming generations, without any exception whatever, 



L.ofC. 



12 

for the proposition which admits of exceptions can never be 
self-evident." 

It should be added that at that time, North and South, it 
was the opinion that slavery would soon disappear, and it 
was only unforeseen inventions which changed the situa- 
tion. But taking whatever view we please of the intention 
of the makers in this regard, there can be no question that 
the Declaration announced important and high ideals for the 
future. Jefferson emphasized this when he said, " It is indeed 
an animating thought that while we are securing the rights 
of ourselves and our posterity we are pointing out the way 
to struggling nations who wish like us to emerge from their 
tyrannies also," and again, " Every man and every body of 
men on earth possesses the right of self government. They 
receive it with their being from the hand of nature." And so 
Charles Sumner later said, " The words that governments 
derive their just powers from the consent of the governed are 
sacred words, full of life-giving energy. Not simply national 
independence was here proclaimed, but also the primal rights 
of all mankind." Abraham Lincoln said, " In these early 
days the Declaration of Independence was held sacred by 
all and thought to include all ;" and again, " If that Declara- 
tion is not the truth, let us get the Statute book in which we 
find it and tear it out." These statements have been echoed 
and re-echoed by all our great statesmen, from Washington 
and Adams and Jefferson to Webster, Sumner, and Lincoln ; 
they have even been asserted more than ouce in political 
platforms of great parties, and wherever the voice of dissent 
was feebly raised and doubters found, it was until recent 
times invariably among the apologists for slavery, or among 
those who feared interference with it, never by the men whom 
we of the present day look upon as leaders, or whose interpre- 
tation we would ever luive been willing to follow. 

No one assumes that the Signers foresaw all the temptations 



13 

and difliculties likely to arise as the nation grew stronger, 

that was as impossible as for their wildest dreams to compass 
its marvellous growth ; but they knew full well that the doc- 
trines they asserted would have to meet severe tests and their 
sublime confidence in the virtue and constancy of the people 
is the more manifest that they were willing to take the risk of 
future conditions. If they were wrong in those doctrines, 
how can we avoid the conclusion that they have been given 
greater credit for wisdom and foresight than they were justly 
entitled to, or that the wisdom of all our great statesmen is 
impugned, who for so many years have asserted and boasted 
of the truths set forth. 

What the Revolutionary statesmen urged upon the people 
as fundamental truths were endorsed as such for more than a 
century, yet if they were mere jihrases or visionary theories, 
the eloquence and statesmanship of all the great statesmen 
before our day or in our day, until within a few years, goes 
for nought. 

Rufus Choate, to be sure, in the stress of a political cam- 
paign urging the claims to the Presidency of James Buchanan, 
termed the Declaration " glittering and sounding generalities 
of natural, right ; " but this was looked upon as exuberant 
rhetoric, and the expression was never taken seriously by the 
country, nor accepted as a matured opinion in contravention 
of the main doctrines of the Declaration. 

More recently men of standing and character have appar- 
ently adopted and even extended Choate's theory, — it has 
been maintained that governments rest upon the consent of 
some of the governed, and this is true and not apart from the 
Declaration if it means that governments rest upon the will 
of the majority, for that carries with it the right of all to 
be heard, — but it is absolutely foreign to the Declaration if 
by "some of the governed" is intended only the more en- 
lightened part of the people, — that is, the minority, —for 



14 

then it upholds a theory differing not at all from that of an 
oligarchy, or even a despotism, and does not represent popu- 
lar government as we have understood it. 

It has been said also that the Declaration applied only to 
civilized peoples, intelligent enough to maintain Republican 
government, or to those of sufficient capacity to govern them- 
selves and to better themselves by such self-government, or 
even farther, that the Declaration is untrue as a general 
proposition and only applied to the existing situation in 
America in 1776. 

No such qualifying phrases can be found in the Declaration 
itself, and if such were in the minds of the statesmen of the 
day it is passing strange that men who had the power to 
express themselves in so lucid and straightforward a way 
never hinted then or thereafter at any such limitations. 

It certainly was not the view of the Continental Congress 
when at the end of the war it said, " Let it be remembered 
that it has ever been the pride and boast of America that the 
rights for which she contended were the rights of human 
nature," and the historic glory of the American Revolution is 
immensely lessened if we accept the Declaration with qualifica- 
tions, for on such a theory nothing was established by tiiat war 
except the ability of the Revolutionists, with the aid of France, 
to bring the rebellion to a successful conclusion, and to estab- 
lish here a Republic, the Declaration becoming to the rest of 
the world of academic interest only as a skilfully worded 
statement of provincial grievances. We all must desire to 
ascertain if possible whether those who hold the theories I 
have stated are correct, and whether our predecessors have 
been cherishing illusory and transitory principles or eternal 
truths, for if the former are right our compass now points in 
a new direction, and we may as well change our course to 
correspond, even though we reach the well-worn track that 
European nations have been following since we originally 
steered awav from them. 



15 

There is a prevalent belief, and with some it accounts for 
the novelty of recent views, that the Declaration prescribed a 
Republican form of government as essential for every people, 
but such is not the fact, as is evident from these words in the 
document : 

" Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of 
these ends (referring to the rights and liberties of the ]>eople), 
it is the right of the people to alter and abolish it, and to con- 
stitute a new government, laying its foundations on such prin- 
ciples and organizing its powers in suck form as to them shall 
seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Pru- 
dence, indeed, will dictate that long-establislied governments 
should not be changed for light and transient causes." 

Washington expressed this in brief and cogent form as 
follows : " Every nation has a right to establish that form 
of government under which it conceives it may live most 
happy." 

The equality before the law asserted in the Declaration 
never implied equality of intelligence or opportunity, nor did 
it necessarily imply universal suffrage as a fixed principle. 
Between 1776, when the Declaration was issued, and 1789, the 
time of the adoption of the Constitution, there were in the 
thirteen States various forms of government, and none of 
them with universal suffrage. A free people may see fit to 
restrict or enlarge their own rights ; they may confer extreme 
power upon appointed rulers, or retain all power to them- 
selves, — whichever course is pursued, if it be the [)eople\s 
unrestricted action, it is in no way inconsistent with the 
Declaration. Of course this excludes absolutely and forever 
any idea of a controlling influence by an outside power, or 
that thei'e can l)e any such thing as self-govci'nmcnt, unless a 
people are left free to determine for themselves the form and 
methods of their own government. To those who wrote the 
Declaration self-government and independence were intercon- 



16 

vertible terms, and the burden is upon those who would now 
distinguish them to invent new definitions. The Declaration 
did not proclaim that every people in the world were fitted for 
a Republican form of government, — that form was unques- 
tionably tlie ideal of the fathers, but the essence of the docu- 
ment was that each nation must determine for itself what 
form it preferred, and so long as the people were freely con- 
sulted, and reserved the right to change when their interests 
were not properly served, the principles were not infringed 
upon. This was to be entirely independent of the form 
adopted ; it might be a limited monarchy like England, an 
armed Republic like France, a Greek, Roman, or South Ameri- 
can Republic, a military dictatorship like Mexico, or even a 
popular despotism like the early days of the Napoleonic 
empires. The modern idea that fitness was to be determined 
by some foreign superior nation had not been thought of 
in 1776. 

Take a concrete case like the England of to-day, excluding, 
of course, her colonies — her ideals may not be the same as 
ours, but it would be a hazardous statement to make that 
the rights of the people as set forth in our Declaration are not 
preserved in England in their full significance quite as well as 
in our own boss-ridden states and cities. England has a 
monarchy in form, but a people's monarchy, and subject to 
the people's will, and it may well be questioned whether the 
people there do not express their will with quite as much 
facility as here. In many places in this country we have a 
practical and vulgar despotism under the. forms of a Republic, 
— the people can and do assert themselves when thoroughly 
aroused, but they are long suffering, and only when the 
bossism becomes too flagrant and offensive can they be led 
to enforce that equality before the law and to exhibit that 
latent power which is necessary to prove that genuine Republi- 
canism still exists. 



17 

In dealing with our Indian tribes the government has pro^ 
cecded upon the theory that they were nations, they have 
not been taxed, and although our treatment of them has not 
been creditable, our theories have been consistent ; still, I 
have no idea that the f ramers of the Declaration believed that 
these tribes, or Oriental nations, or any semi-civilized peoples 
were fitted for a Republic, or that for them such a form would 
be wise or safe ; but they did not lose sight of it as the 
ultimate for every people, and believed that it could only 
be attained by every people working out their own salvation 
and by that governmental evolution which through struggle 
and hardship alone leads to a higher and more stable form. 
Secretary Hay once incisiveh' expressed it thus : " No people 
are fit for anything else than self-government,''' and it was an 
eminent Frenchman who truly said, " You cannot have a 
Republic without Republicans." 

Given the capacity to form some government and you have 
all the conditions necessary for improvement, and in the 
Providence of God a people can better be trusted to improve 
itself than it can to gain in self-government under the sub- 
jection of others. 

Applying these principles as our fathers stated them, and 
as they applied them, unless in the case of slavery, and 
remembering that their sin in that case, however, much forced 
by their situation, was atoned for from 1861 to 1865 in blood 
and treasure, the problems relating to inferior races become 
greatly simplified, for the " white man's burden" ceases to be 
war and subjection and becomes a Christian principle in 
recognizing as the sole right of the stronger his duty to assist 
and encourage the weaker in the struggle to preserve such 
government as suits him best and for which he deems himself 
best fitted. 

Abandoning the principles of the Declaration, the white 
man's burden means to the black or yellow man political 
slavery and wrong. 



18 

Even the Anglo-Saxon, with all his success in many 
respects, as a colonist, has utterly failed to lead an inferior 
race up to self-government — he may have carried with him 
some material advantages, but his assumed and vaunted 
burden cannot be separated from his love of power and 
soaring ambition. 

His dominating superiority makes him a hard master of 
another race, and he fails utterly in sympathetic appreciation 
of racial differences and characteristics. 

No one can dispute his marvellous capacity, the forcefulness 
of his dealings, and in many cases his patient, earnest attempt 
to better the conditions of those whom he rules ; but he never 
has accepted nor understood the peculiar natures of his sub- 
jects nor enlisted their sympathies or affections. Without 
intending to be cruel, his cool assumption of the power to 
remake people and force them into his own mould has led him 
into errors which have caused great hardship and have ended 
in estrangement and hatred. 

Neither material prosperity nor orderly government wins 
the hearts or permanently changes the habits of peoples 
whose traditions have been interfered with and whose imagi- 
native and fickle natures have not been taken into account. 
A foreign government remains forever foreign to a people 
whose love has not been gained, and who are made to feel that 
they are inferior and never to be on terms of full equality 
with their masters. 

No more conspicuous instance can be found than in the 
condition of India after a century and a half of English rule, 
much of it by excellent men of great capacity and strengtii, 
and of honest intention. It began with the rule of the sword, 
and to-day it is nothing else, — it has not led the people 
towards self-government, nor has it succeeded in inspiring 
confidence and affection, — stripped of the thin veneer of 
civilization which has been spread over the land, the con- 



19 

queror and the conquered still face each other as ever alien 
and hostile races, the conquered hating their masters, and 
sullenly biding their time for revolt, and the conqueror hold- 
ing them down by force and fear only. The gulf between the 
races is as broad as ever, and everything indicates that a 
withdrawal of British power would be followed by a tem- 
porary return to much the former conditions of semi-barbar- 
ism, until something better was evolved by struggle and 
experience, aided now by the bright example of a neighboring 
power. 

Egypt, which on the surface shows good results, has done 
little but exchange a Turkish for an English ruler, so far a 
gain, for it has been followed by an apparent advance in 
material prosperity and a lightening of the burdens, but it is 
not easy to ascertain how far the prosperity has really bene- 
fited the people ; and remembering that Egypt was once the 
centre of advanced civilization, it is by no means proved that 
as a free people they would not have been further on the road 
towards a hopeful self-government. 

If we look to the Dutch colonies in Asia, we find at best 
a condition of peonage and political servitude and a war that 
has had little cessation in fifty years. There again it is force 
and fear and not self-government. In German, French, or 
Russian colonies no one seeks for self-government, and the 
hopelessness of their situation is that neither fraternization 
with the people exists nor improvement of conditions by 
emigration from the ruling countries. 

To point the contrast, and to evidence the truth of the prin- 
ciples of the Declaration, we may well consider the rising 
empire of Japan, inhabited by a people differing but little from 
the neighboring races, a century ago not far removed from 
barbarism, pagan in religion, though tolerant, Asiatic in habits 
and thought, self-governed and independent because it has been 
left to work out its own problems, yet now by its own energy 



20 

advancing towards civilization and Christianity, and rapidly 
becoming a great power in the East. No stronger exemplifica- 
tion can be found of the principle that a people is better fitted 
for self-government than any other, and that its own experi- 
ence and efforts offer better tutelage than the wisest and most 
beneficent rule of foreign masters. 

The plans of statesmen, the ambition of nations may come 
into conflict with the doctrines of the Declaration, but they are 
of no concern as compared with the truth or falsity of the 
principles it contains. If it is not to be followed as a stand- 
ard of governmental ethics, and is a visionary statement of 
unpractical theories, we seem somehow to have lost our bear- 
ings, and to have parted with our guiding lights. No true 
American, whatever his party allegiance, can avoid or lightly 
treat these important questions, nor can the right solution come 
from a consultation of his interests or prejudices, nor from 
any source other than the experience of the years since 1776, 
and a careful consideration of the wisdom or folly of the 
teachings of those who have made this country what it is. No 
day can better emphasize these thoughts than this anniver- 
sary, and if in avoiding anything of a partisan nature I have 
willingly laid myself open to the charge of triteness, let us 
remember that the trite things of this world are often of the 
most importance, and the more familiar thej are, the more 
apt they are to be disregarded or forgotten. They cannot be 
foreign to the purposes of this meeting, for although the 
original parchment of the Declaration at Washington has faded 
out, the principles of this most important and startling of State 
Papers will always be living light, and if the day should ever 
come when it would be unbecoming to discuss them here, one 
of the great purposes of this Association would have been 
lost, and the nature of our people and our theory of govern- 
ment changed. 

When Daniel Webster with liis masterly eloquence evolved 



21 

from liis imagination the groat speech of John Adams upon 
the Declaration, he could have had in his mind no qualifying 
phrases, no doubts as to the eternal truths which were pro- 
claimed, and no question but that independence was the ideal 
for and the right of every nation of the earth ; otherwise his 
words failed to ring true, and he never could have closed with 
such statements as these : 

" Read this Declaration at the head of the army, every sword 
will be drawn from its scabbard and the soh7nn vow uttered to 
maintain it or perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the 
pulpit, religion will approve it and the love of religious liberty 
will cling round it, resolved to stand ivith it or fall loith it; send 
it to the public halls, —proclaim it there, — let them hear it who 
first heard the roar of the enemy's ca7inon, — let them see it who 
saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill 
and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls 
will cry out in its support.'^ 



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